


First Halloween

by Tafferling



Category: A Shielding Thing, Dying Light, Resident Evil
Genre: Crane makes for a terrible cowboy, Fluff, Gen, Halloween Costumes, holiday fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-27 23:05:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8420623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tafferling/pseuds/Tafferling
Summary: She's got no clue what a "Cowboy" might be, is unfamiliar with the concept of people cutting wide grins into pumpkins, and has not a lick of an idea why there's a man covered in glitter strutting about. But Redfield seems to think it'll be fun, even if all he comes dressed up in is just more of himself.





	1. It's all a little odd..

**Author's Note:**

> What do you get when you put together my Valiant Remedy Fic and Latchkey Hero? Mindless fluff, is what. _*adores it*_

**T** hey’re going somewhere and she doesn’t know where.

That, by definition, is a Redfield thing. He likes the not telling part of an excursion which doesn’t start with snapping a gun to his side, or shrugging his duties back on his shoulder. Likes to keep her guessing. Likes that, (for once) she's the one in the dark about things and not him.

Sadja is okay with that, so she lets him have his mystery and watches the world roll by from the passenger window of their big wheeled metal beastie. A world that puzzles her a little, truth be told. It's changed, with big orange pumpkins sitting on porches, all wide, empty grins and topped with the occasional hat, and all sorts of oddities lining the streets. Skeletons. Long nosed women with pointy hats riding brooms. Fake black cats. 

She can't make sense of it, and she doesn't feel like trying right now, or asking. Redfield keeps stoically quiet about it, as if its the most normal of things, so she figures it must be.

When they arrive, they’re early. He likes that, too.

Being on time is hardly ever enough. He’s got to have a head start, get a lay of the land and whatnot before things start rolling, and be well and ready for anything. Anything this time being a fairly empty restaurant that's trying itself at being— being— what? She steps through the doors by his side and lets her eyes flick left and right. Fake spider webs. Matching fake spiders. Bats (also fake). More pumpkins. More bleached bones (which she figures are just as fake) and drapes of white cloth with eyes on them.

At this point, Sadja decides she's officially confused, and considers asking about the why of the what, but she's also quite hungry and that usually wins out. So she slides into the booth he indicates (first pickings of seats, place is almost empty), and grabs for the menu. More mystery unfolds itself on the pages, with names such as _Wicked Witchy Fingers_ ,  _Hot Dog Mummies,_ and  _Bleeding Hearts,_ and when her brows start hiking up in her forehead, Redfield seems amused. Least until his phone starts buzzing and he leaves her to entertain herself, because “Hey Claire, what’s up?” is always important, and she wouldn’t dare interrupting that.

She opts in to order whatever her fingers fall while holding her eyes shut, and that nets her a drink at least. Not what she had in mind, since it isn't about to fill her stomach, but and she's told the _Corpse in a Casket_ she asked for would take a while longer. Said stomach rumbles, despite not knowing just what that dish entails, and Sadja complains. Not loudly. That’d be too easy. She looks across the table at Redfield and stares at him with a pointed expression declaring: _I will eat you if you don’t feed me anytime soon._

He arches a brow at her in turn, his chin twitching to the tall glass in front of her, and then goes back to turning his attention to the phone pressed to his ear. There’s obviously a sibling thing brewing across that table, some argument or the other that Sadja thinks the younger Redfield will win, by virtue of being a woman and therefore better at the whole thing. Naturally.

But he tries anyway, because he’s stubborn like that, and after that he’ll just forget about it, because he’s decent like that.

She sighs, glances at the glass, filled to the brim with pink smush, and a straw pointed into her general direction. There’s a chocolate spider sitting on it. She’s hungry, not thirsty, and the thing is cold and she still remembers the first time she’d had something that frigid. It had hurt something fierce, like someone had jabbed a mean ole needle through her skull.

 _Brain freeze_ , Redfield had called it and grinned at her.

He didn’t grin very often, so it had been worth it. But still.

Sadja dips her head down, ready to snap her teeth around the straw, but before she gets anywhere near it, the bench she sits on shudders with a loud _THUMP_ and then there’s a shoulder knocking into hers and a hand on her drink.

Said drink vanishes and the straw goes between a set of lips that isn’t hers, because she doesn’t sport a stubbly chin and she’s not called Crane.

“God, I’m thirsty,” he says and Sadja watches the drink dwindle in the glass. One draw and the next, and there’s like half of it gone already.

“You’re also an ass,” she tells him, matter of fact, and his lips curl around the straw.

“What you gonna do about it?” He’s still got the straw in his mouth so it sounds a little muffled, and Sadja can think of a few things she’d like to do, most of them repeat performances, but he hadn't ever minded, so why bother.

Instead she stares at him and asks: “Why are you dressed all funny?”

Because he is. For one, he’s wearing a hat, a wide brimmed monster of one sitting low on his forehead. With the hat comes an outfit that makes him look like one of the gunslingers she’s seen on the TeeVee box— the ones come riding in on horses. It’s all leather over a white shirt and some red scarf around his neck, and if it didn’t look so ridiculous she would have said it fit.

“Better question,” he counters. “Why aren’t you?”

His head snaps around, and the straw comes with it, dangling from his mouth. A mouth with a grin so bloody wide on it, she’s amazed it hasn’t registered for its own residency permit yet. There’s ice cream dripping from the straw, and Sadja stares at that for a moment.

“Hasn’t he told you about Halloween?”

 _He_ being Redfield, and Crane’s new/no longer so new Captain earns himself a sideways glance. He returns it with a shrug while informing his sister she’s overreacting about something or the other.

“Hallo-what?”

“Oh girl, you’re missing out— “ Crane jabs a thumb over his shoulder, and there are more folks arriving now, and all of them seem to have lost their collective minds. “Halloween means you get to dress up, tell spooky stories, and eat shit tons of candy.”

“Hrrrmh,” she hums, not convinced of the whole thing, but at least some of the odd of the past two days is righting itself.

Next to her, Crane slurps loudly, and across of her, Redfield closes his eyes, his head bobbing in the on-setting stage of defeat.

More people arrive. There are faces in there that she actually knows. There’s Nivans, for one, and he comes right over to exchange ritualistic fist raps with Crane and slots himself into the booth next to Redfield.

He wears a cap on his head, colour matched with a suit of sorts, and Crane informs her he’s posing as an F1 driver. Whatever that might be. Cute though, even if all the words stamped on the clothing is making her a bit dizzy.

Valentine is here too, and she gets a whistle from between Crane’s teeth— promptly followed by a grunt as he gets kicked in the shin. She comes by to say hello too, and Sadja thinks she earns herself that whistle, what with that crinkly red skirt and its white lace, and the matching top that hugs her torso tight. The tall, black boots are bloody nice, too— and she’s got a red cloth wrapped around her skull. A pirate, Crane says, and he wouldn’t mind getting boarded— which promptly results in another _THUMP_ from under the table and he’s rubbing at his shin while grinning at a harassed looking Piers.

Redfield just smirks and shakes his head, until the smirk dies and he’s back to “It’ll be fine, Claire..”

There’s Barry Burton too, and Crane draws a bit of a blank on him. “Buttler? Double O Seven? Fucked if I know.”

“Looks dapper though,” she says and he shrugs.

One lanky lad comes in dressed in rot— and there’s a general turn of heads his way and a few mutters of _God damn, Keith_ — because apparently rocking up looking all _Zombie_ seems to indicate poor taste. Crane finds it funny though while he slurps up the rest of her drink.

Then he’s back to educating her on who’s what— from Darth Vader to a Ninja Turtle (all green padding on a short back), and her food still isn’t here.

She sighs and she starts bouncing her knees up and down, drums her fingers on the table, and flicks her eyes across the restaurant. People. More people. People not looking like people but very much being people— and smack in the middle a large pit erected in a slight dip in the floor. Its fenced off and its padded, and at the centre of it stands a massive, fake bovine with horns.

Her brows crinkle.

“Ever ridden a mechanical bull?” Crane leans forward, stares at the thing too, like he’s making a point to look at the same thing that’s caught her eye.

“Nh,” she breathes.

“I bet I can stay on longer than you,” he proclaims. “Come on.” He picks the straw from his lips, flicks it into the glass, and grabs her by the elbow to drag her from the booth.

Sadja throws a quick glance towards Redfield, but he’s looking at Crane, giving the man a slight nod and one of those grateful little smiles that meant to say things like _Thanks, man. I owe you one._

On the way there he pauses once to stare at a man who looks perfectly ordinary, if he’d not sprinkled glitter on his face and neck and arms.

“So what’s he meant to be?” She shoots the puzzled Crane a look and he shrugs.

Once by the bull (which is quite tall, she’s got to admit) Crane gets on first. To _show her how it’s done_ , according to him and his stupid wide grin.

He doesn’t fall off.

Then she gets on and she stays on too, if with a little less grace and a few more close calls. That vexes him, because he can’t stand losing— or admitting to a tie —and he hatches a plan.

First he snaps his fingers in front of her, draws her attention back to him after she’d started trying to desperately figure out why this girl is wearing an unmatched pair of stockings and dyed her pigtails pink.

Then he points to the thing’s bulbous rump. “Come on, hot stuff. Up and at ‘em again.”

Crane is already back atop the thing, but he’s crouching on it, knees bent slightly, weight shifting from one leg to the other. He looks down at her, extends a hand.

Her head cocks to the side and she catches his eyebrows riding up and down his forehead, an expression that stirs a muted giggle in her gut, and has her snap her fingers around his wrist without questioning his intent.

He’s always full of ideas, most of them batshit insane, and she loves that, even if some of them had gotten quite close to getting her killed. Them killed.

And this one’s no different.

“Hey, don’t crowd,” he complains and shoves her foot with his as they try to both get equal footing across of each other, him with one leg planted behind him on the bull’s ass, her with one against its neck. The second set is fighting for the best hold in the middle, and he shoves at her shoulder once, almost nudging her off, so she knocks her knee into his and he laughs.

Then the thing starts moving under them.

Arms extended, knees bent, eyes focused but still staring each other down, they balance on it while it rocks up and down. Rump up, head down— head up, rump down— it keeps going, first in a predictable rhythm, then with a harder buck here, a jerk there. And then it flails sideways and there’s a flicker of alarm in his light brown eyes and the tall figure of Crane tilts the other way, shortly followed by her when the thing swipes its head away from under her. Or it might have been that, if he’d not grabbed her elbow on the way down and she follows him to the matt.

She gets a good view of the ceiling above her, dark panelled wood and all, and the bull still bucking in her peripheral vision, and then there’s an _OOOPH_ under her when she lands, followed by a muted fuck, all tiny and pained, and with a bit of a wheeze in it.

Crane tries to fill his lungs with air under her back, and one of his arms flops up and down next to her, like he’s tapping himself out. She rolls off him, which evicts another pained little noise from him, and then she’s the one that has to help him up to his feet, because he’s pale as a sheet and mouthing profanities, none of them very helpful at getting him back up.

 


	2. Cowboy Crane Artwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A supplementary sketch for the piece.. Isn't he dapper?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couldn't help sketching Crane with his cowboy hat. The piece has received a bit of an overhaul as well, and I'm quite happy with my first ever Holiday fic :D

**Author's Note:**

> A shout out to the lovely folks over at the /r/FanFiction Discord channel for helping me brainstorm some costumes. Especially Velmel for the glitter idea :D


End file.
